Top 10 Interesting Facts about the Tour De France

Tour de France, the Swedish sometimes “Tour de France”, is an annual bike race that runs in France. It belongs together with the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a EspaÃ±a to the three major stage races in cycling sport in the world (Grand Tour). The contest has been running since 1903 with the exception of the two world wars. Earlier followed bicycle race typically French outer borders but now run the race usually even into neighboring countries.

Tour de France runs for three weeks in July and is divided into about 20 stages which is around 200 km long. The Tour de France is considered the most prestigious bicycle race in the world and the third largest sporting event in the world after the Summer Olympics and the World Cup. You had dried a race? If not, we can instead offer ten little-known facts about the Tour de France!

Â Top 10 Interesting Facts about the Tour De France

It all began as a competition between two papers in France;Â l’Auto and Auto . L’Auto wanted to reach out to more readers than its competitor, Auto, and using the bicycle race succeeded the addition of the feat. That it would become the world ‘s third largest sporting event in the future, they had probably had in mind, however.

In 1947 it came to light that several contestants had filled their water bottles with lead , precisely because the cycle would roll faster down.

Lance Armstrong , who won the Tour de France the entire seven times , but received their medals withdrawn by the USÂ Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), is not the only one to have doped themselves. Already in the early years trying participants to dope themselves in different ways. Most popular was alcohol and and essential , in order to deal with the pain that arose during a hard race.

Perhaps the most daring fraud was practiced during the early years of the Tour de France. A lot of contestants sat namely the train and rolled on the rails until they were not far from the finish line. It almost sounds like taken from a Donald Duck magazine.

The competition is across the 3 000 km long. It is as far as cycling from London to Jerusalem .

During the early era of the Tour de France, it was not so much prestige in the bicycle race as it is today. Then, people were mostly looking for attention , and it did not hear at all unusual for people rode on the most odd bikes – or performing tricks on his bike. To top it all, it happened that the people in the audience died when the accident occurred in riders.

Last year (2015) was attended by over 12 million people Â in the audience to get a quick look of the riders.

Perhaps not surprisingly, it is precisely France that has won the Tour de France most times – throughout the 36 gold medals the Frenchman has scooped! In second place we find Belgium with 18 medals and then Spain with its 12 gold medals .

On 31 July 1998, Magnus BÃ¤ckstedt the first Swedish rider to win a stage at the Tour de France. With its 94 kg , he was also the heaviest participant and went by the nickname “Big Maggy”.

Four athletes have died during the Tour de France. One of them died in connection with that he would take a dip in the lake during the break between stages.